It was a very tumultuous summer, but it’s still good to be King, meaning the NFL. After sad and ugly front-page headlines of a murder, DWIs and concussions, the focus turns to training camp and the play on the field. Yes, in other words, on practice. And I have never seen such comprehensive media coverage of wind-sprints, 1-on-1 drills, 7-on-7s and, yes, 11-on-11 run-thrus with players in shorts and shells, as is happening this year.

In analyzing coverage over the last month, no one can tell me that interest for all things training camp isn’t at an all-time high and reflected by the decision-makers at sports desks around the U.S. Now, I understand it’s a slow time of year, but let me share my own first-person experience.

I follow the Patriots, yes, quite closely, and I’m overwhelmed at the coverage from camp. I’m getting consistent, smart filings from at least six robust regional offerings — all with strong editorial voices and perspective. There’s ESPN Boston, where Mike Reiss and his team are exhaustive and sharp in their analysis; the Boston Globe has a number of new daily feeds and features; at the Boston Herald, there are instant observations of how second-round draft choice

Boston.com and ESPN Boston are among the many outlets for following news out of the New England Patriots’ training camp.

Aaron Dobson has looked. WEEI.com has daily “what to watch for” features and then “takeaways” post-practice, while Comcast SportsNet New England gives me “Postcards from Camp” from the strong Tom Curran. Finally, the mothership, Patriots.com, has camp notebooks, full transcripts and numerous multimedia features from practice every day. I consume it all. Each has its own feel and flavor, and while some of the information is repetitive, there are good takeaways from each. Again, all of this devoted to covering practice.

It’s the same in my current home of Charlotte around the Panthers. I’ll use the local paper as the example. Since camp opened, The Charlotte Observer has had approximately four stories per day of coverage from camp. There’s a news lead/profile generally above the fold supported by a column on the front of the sports section. Those jump inside to at least one other news story along with a notebook. So there are anywhere from one to three pages of coverage of everything from practice. And I’m focusing only on the main regional providers, not the national offerings. Who can BUY this kind of publicity let alone receive it for free?! There is obviously consumer and business interest behind this influx of coverage, and others see the interest only growing.

I called Boston Globe Sports Editor Joe Sullivan, who said the Globe and its Boston.com site had beefed up their training camp coverage over the last two summers, but admitted he sensed a more recent sea change. “There is no doubt that the amount of detail and coverage of training camp has been ramped up,” he told me. “This is all a fairly recent development. Readers seem absolutely insatiable with news about the NFL.” When I talked about the volume of coverage from various outlets, he jumped right in, “We needed to do it to keep up with the competition.”

Sullivan walked me through their process for both the Globe newspaper and Boston.com. The site provides a “Camp Daily Briefing” early in the morning outlining the day’s events, news coverage and assorted NFL/Patriots links. Updates are filed from Foxboro during the day (outside of constant tweets from the field highlighting a virtual play-by-play of, again, practice), and it’s all followed by a “Practice Report from Training Camp” later in the afternoon that outlines the highs and lows of that day’s session, who’s up and who’s down, along with other notes. Sullivan said the “Practice Report” works online and in print for them.

Those features are augmented by a “Training Camp Today” video of up to five minutes posted late in the day. In terms of reporters in Foxboro for camp, they have their primary two — NFL writer Ben Volin and Patriots beat reporter Shalise Manza Young — but Sullivan also sends a third reporter to assist in getting quotes from players and coaches. “Some of this is a result of access. Players are all leaving the field at the same time, so we need a body there to get quotes,” he said. He also has one reporter and video producer committed to coverage strictly for Boston.com. Five people covering practice. Is this all a little much, I asked? He laughed a bit, paused and said, “I agree that what we’re reporting on is just practice. It’s just practice, but it is interesting material that could — could — have a bearing on their season down the line.” And while not revealing specifics, he said traffic numbers are overwhelmingly supporting the investment.

Let’s take it outside the local markets, because going long on the NFL is a national trend. Spend time on SI’s new Peter King-branded theMMQB.com and you’ll see just how voracious the appetite is for NFL news. The way King & Co. have built out his “tentpole” offerings while adding vast amounts of content has created a deep, stand-alone football hub. At ESPN.com, sources have stressed to me time and again of the appeal of NFL content. The traffic numbers are huge and the ad sales around it dwarf everything else on the site. ESPN.com will now hire bloggers for each team. It’s clear to me the NFL coverage is driving a majority of traffic to local sites — ESPN Boston, New York and Dallas. So now ESPN.com plans to scale market-by-market team coverage to boost its local strategy. Need further proof of the traffic around the NFL: Take Friday, Aug. 9. The Patriots open their preseason against the Eagles, while the first-place Red Sox are on a key road trip. The main features on ESPNBoston.com are dominated by the Patriots’ game from Philadelphia, not the first-place Sox in the middle of a division race. Would that have happened 10 years ago? I would bet not.

So what kind of coverage stands out? Sullivan has stressed a much more sophisticated analysis of game film, and pointed to the weekly analysis that former NFL writer Greg Bedard brought to the Globe before joining King’s operation. Bedard was a protégé of Bob McGinn in Milwaukee who is widely credited for being at the forefront of this type of analysis. “This is a real trend that we’ve seen that has really worked well for us,” Sullivan said. “Teams aren’t going to make all their players and coaches available, and you want to give readers an honest opinion of what’s going on. But you don’t want to do it in a haphazard way. So you can do it through a good analysis of game film. It’s out there and available though the NFL’s ‘All-22’ video. This really enhances your coverage at a time when NFL teams are becoming more secretive with what they’re doing.”

Five quick conclusions: First, the amount of coverage from camp gives each NFL team an additional six weeks of news footage in its market. Two, with all this coverage, young writers should know there are going to be opportunities. Three, the challenge for editors and writers to differentiate news, analysis and personality coverage will be steep, but vital. Four, teams need to invest in their news and video departments because they are best positioned to offer rare, unique and behind-the-ropes access. Finally, there is already an ad-supported element here, but someone may introduce an additional monetization element by making this news and analysis accessible to premium insider subscribers.

Many try to convince me that interest in the NFL has plateaued. I’ll point to this as an example of why I don’t buy it. Meanwhile, I’ve got to find out how many one-handed catches rookie free agent tight end Zach Sudfeld caught at practice. He might even make the team!

Environmentalism has a front-row seat in collegiate sports. From zero-waste programs for college football home games to larger university greening efforts, “the greening of collegiate sports is growing rapidly,” said Alice Henly, coordinator of the Collegiate Sports Greening Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York City.

While quick change in large, complex university environments may seem counterintuitive, student passion, teamed with the focus of athletic and recreation departments on providing an environment for healthy, high-performance athletes, is spurring action in sustainability across campus sports operations.

■Zero waste: The catalyst

Last October, during Ohio State’s home football game against Purdue, the sustainability, athletics and facilities departments joined together to roll out a zero-waste initiative and achieved a 94.4 percent diversion rate. Zero waste refers to diverting 90 percent or more of materials from the landfill by recycling and composting. At Ohio State’s highest diversion rate last year, it reduced waste sent to the landfill from 15,000 pounds after an average home game to 447 pounds.

Similarly, the University of Colorado has implemented a zero-waste program across its varsity and club sports programs and has branded its zero-waste student force as Ralphie’s Green Stampede (drawing from the name of CU’s buffalo mascot). “Athletics gave us a highly visible platform to prove what’s possible in terms of reaching net zero on campus,” said Dave Newport, director of the CU Environmental Center.

Martin Tull, executive director of the Green Sports Alliance, said waste-based projects have found the quickest adoption on campuses because they tend to require a lower upfront investment and encourage the most fan participation as compared to other sustainability strategies like alternative energy projects. Additionally, because stadiums offer a controlled environment to execute waste-based projects, a single-game pilot is immediately measurable in terms of waste reduction and economic impact and qualitatively measurable in terms of fan feedback. This has allowed sustainability programs on campus to test and prove out the business case for broader environmental initiatives that do require permanent changes to infrastructure and operations.

While waste reduction is one of the most prominent movements in the greening of collegiate sports, such initiatives have paved the way for larger university greening investments that require broad-reaching infrastructural and operational changes. For example, Arizona State University has set aggressive goals to achieve zero waste by 2015, followed by climate neutrality in building energy by 2025. To achieve these goals, ASU has invested in infrastructural changes to Wells Fargo Arena, including the 500-kilowatt installation of photovoltaic panels throughout the venue.

But even with big environmental commitments and heavy investment across many campuses, awareness of the rapid changes occurring at the collegiate level remains low.

The release of last year’s Game Changer report, authored by NRDC and the Green Sports Alliance, on the greening of professional sports proved to be a watershed moment, revealing the depth of green investments among pro teams. Tull believes the collegiate version, which is due to be issued at the Green Sports Alliance’s annual summit, Aug. 26-28 in New York City, is going to reveal a similar trend for universities.

One of the most compelling findings to come out of the report is the economic value green initiatives have for athletic departments. Unlike fans of professional sports teams, collegiate sports’ core fan bases have direct access to their athletic departments and their programs. Campus athletic directors at universities like Colorado and Arizona State understand that student funding is central to the long-term success of a program.

“We don’t sell football games here,” CU’s Newport said. “What we sell on a Saturday afternoon is community. Our athletic director recognized immediately that sustainability programs like zero waste enhance this community experience.”

■Building momentum through community engagement

NRDC and the Green Sports Alliance agree that the immediate opportunity athletic departments have in increasing the potential of their funding is by fostering student engagement and participation. The more opportunities students and alumni have to affect the game-day experience, the more pride and loyalty universities can build among their alumni and donors. The hope is that this will lead eventually to increases on game day in ticket, concession and merchandise sales.

Still, if athletic programs are selling community every Saturday, the question remains, Does the greening of college sports have the power to affect a whole community in leading a greener lifestyle?

“When your local team says they cut their energy by 60 percent and so can you, that’s a very powerful message,” Tull said. “Environmental work has been done for 60 years but it has only initiated change among a small population. With pro and collegiate sports getting engaged, our hope is that we reach the other 80 to 90 percent of the population by connecting with them emotionally.”

And is it working?

“It’s a work in progress,” Tull said. “Greening programs on campus offer tremendous opportunities for students to gain professional experience and demonstrate real results with their work. These opportunities translate to future leaders that see the value in change and community impact.”

■The next steps

The forthcoming Game Changer report will reinforce that in order to increase the social and economic benefits that come with athletics-based sustainability programs, information sharing between universities and state-based organizations is key.

Collegiate sports departments have the opportunity to use case studies such as Colorado’s and Ohio State’s to effect change on their own campuses, starting small through a zero-waste pilot program and using the results to prove out the return on investment sustainability programs can have.

Universities on the front line have set goals and built programs to ensure that they meet these goals, and many of
these same universities began small, through zero-waste pilots executed in a controlled environment by leveraging their stadiums.

Christine Costa (christinec@imre.com) is IMRE Sports’ sustainability practice leader and works with teams and brands to market and promote their sustainability programs and efforts.